glis

Forms

glīs m (genitive glīris); third declension^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Proto-Italic *glīs, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵlh₂-i-, “husband's sister, aunt”, which in de Vaan's account came to mean “weasel”.^[2] Following Cuesta Pastor, de Vaan notes that the Hesychian gloss Ancient Greek γάλις (gális, “husband's sister”), Sanskrit गिरि (giri-, “sister-in-law”) and the Armenian word for the husband's sister point to such a stem, and that “aunt” is often used metaphorically for the weasel;^[2] Oettinger observes that in Romance languages and dialects the words for “weasel” and “aunt” are often the same.^[2] Wiktionary gives the same derivation and relates it to glōs (“husband's sister”).^[1] The OLD suggests a comparison with the Sanskrit word.^[3]

Cognate with Ancient Greek γαλέη (galéē, “weasel, marten”), which de Vaan says first named the animal's skin.^[2] Szemerényi took ⟨glīs⟩ as a borrowing of this Greek word in its Hellenistic pronunciation, which de Vaan finds unlikely because of the different meaning and the form.^[2] The TLL calls the origin uncertain, and reports that Festus, Servius and Isidore derived the word from glīscō (“to swell, grow”).^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

De Vaan finds it from Plautus on.^[2] A Plautine fragment speaks of swarms of dormice, glirium examina.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word names the edible dormouse, which the Romans kept and fattened as a delicacy, as Varro, Pliny the Elder, Martial and the cookery book of Apicius show.^[5][3] Varro lists dormice beside geese and hens among the stock of a farm,^[3] and Martial calls them sleepy.^[3]

The Greek glossaries render it with Ancient Greek μυοξός (muoxós), “dormouse”.^[6] In Late Latin a nominative gliris was formed from the oblique cases, and Gregory of Tours writes forms in glir- and gler-.^[4][7]

Timeline

• c. 250–184 BC – A fragment of Plautus mentions swarms of dormice.^[3][8]
• 116–27 BC – Varro lists dormice among farm stock.^[3][8]
• before 66 AD – Petronius mentions dormice.^[3][8]
• 40–102/103 AD – Martial calls dormice sleepy.^[3][8]
• c. 560–636 AD – Isidore derives the name from glīscō.^[4][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dormouse.^[3][5]

Related words

• glōs

Usage notes

The Appendix Probi corrects the nominative gliris to glis.^[7]

A rare and unrelated glis (genitive glitis) meant a tenacious kind of earth, clay or marl;^[9][4][1] Niermeyer calls it Celtic, and a medieval glossary lists it as “terra tenax”.^[9][4][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Goetz, Georg (1888–1923), Corpus glossariorum Latinorum, Leipzig: Teubner; vols. VI–VII Thesaurus glossarum emendatarum, digital ed. CGLO, Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
7. ^ a b Appendix Probi, a late antique list of correct and censured Latin word forms ("calida non calda"); ed. H. Keil, Grammatici Latini IV, Leipzig 1864, 197–199.
8. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
9. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill